Starting with Frege's foundational theories of sense and reference, Miller provides an introduction to the formal logic used in all subsequent philosophy of language. He communicates a sense of active philosophical debate by confronting the views of the early theorists concerned with building systematic theories - Frege, Russell, and the logical positivists - with the attacks mounted by sceptics - such as Quine, Kripke, and Wittgenstein. This leads to excursions into related areas of metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science that present more recent attempts to save the notions of sense and meaning by philosophers such as Grice, Searle, Fodor, McGinn, and Wright. Miller then returns to the systematic program by examining the formal theories of Donald Davidson, concluding with a chapter surveying the relevance of philosophy of language to the broader metaphysical debates between realists and anti-realists.

Alex Miller is lecturer of philosophy, University of Birmingham.

Alex Miller's profile page